Michael Andrews and June 1966

Lucian Freud made "Michael Andrews and June," an oil on canvas painting with a particular kind of attention to the human form. It’s all about the paint, isn't it? Look at the way Freud builds up the faces, layering strokes of ochre, pinks, and grays to sculpt the features. It’s almost sculptural, like he's carving these figures out of the canvas. You can practically feel the texture of the paint, thick in some areas, thinner in others, creating a real sense of depth and physicality. There’s a kind of controlled chaos in the way he applies the paint, a tension between representation and abstraction. Notice the way he renders June’s hand, the almost awkward angle of her fingers, and the patches of raw color he uses to define the form. It reminds me of the early work of Frank Auerbach, another painter who was unafraid to wrestle with the materiality of paint, pushing it to its limits to capture the raw, messy reality of human existence. For Freud, painting was a way of seeing, a way of knowing, a way of feeling the world.